Pandemic or panic?

Well as this week draws to a close I am reminded that the word pandemic sounds very like panic and that is an apt analogy for the state of things. My work situation is so poor that the life partner actually cleaned up the supper dishes last night while I walked the dog. I almost fell over when I discovered that but apparently he was frightened of the state I was in.

My schedule today was not enhanced by the fact I had committed to doing another Mid Week Break presentation at the library so with travel and session had to be out of the office from 10 - 2. How could I refuse my fans when they were the ones who gave me my start in the cruise ship speaking gigs by humoring me the first time? When I arrived I discovered the local cable company was planning to film my talk so I got a lapel microphone, copied my slides to the camera man’s flashstick and we were off. I think he was somewhat disappointed that I wasn’t nervous or bothered by the development as I hadn’t been advised. I told him I was famous on cruise ships so not a problem. In reality it was small stuff compared to my day job lately. There were as many in the audience as on the Sea Princess for the original talk so I was impressed. When I mentioned Norway I was immediately booked for the fall – so many followers, so little time.

The baby daughter headed out for the city and leaves tomorrow (fingers crossed) at noonish for Sweden via New York so as long as there’s no travel ban and she arrives in Stockholm I will be pleased. She has instructions to update via email along the way. Will keep you posted. The main concern at this point is the increase by the World Health Organization of the pandemic alert from 4 to 5 meaning a pandemic is approaching. In the midst of the drama of work she arrived to print her boarding information and as she was leaning over I discovered….a tattoo on her right shoulder. Now that caused some excitement, even though I was almost unable to process it due to information overload exploding around me. And apparently I was one of the few who didn’t know about it as I questioned the oldest sister (who I was congratulating on receiving her official mutual sales certification) about it and she said “ah, she almost made it without you finding out before she left, so close”.

On a more local note, the only son has been proving that he can be a grownup if he chooses to. The lobster license was ‘signed over’ in his name on Monday and he has gone as Captain with just the hired man since then. He ‘kept up’ with the local catches yesterday and today was ‘high boat’ with the largest catch at the plant and by quite a large margin. Obviously the amounts cannot be shared as fishermen are notoriously closed mouth about such details, but suffice to say that he did better than his father expected. The medium term plan is to find a lobster boat/license for purchase this summer for the lad.

On another positive note, the Captain who was seriously injured at sea in February, continues to make a good recovery and arrived today at the plant to catch up on the news and visit surprising everyone. He’s driving, negotiating stairs and planning on how to get back to work as he’s going stir crazy at home.

When I arrived home and started making supper a call for support for a political candidate - the local Conservative - came and let me tell you the poor individual making that call was sorry she found me as I gave her two earfuls on how I (and all my neighbours) were making it a public campaign that if we didn’t receive highspeed internet we’d hold the premier and his Conservative party personally responsible. She assured me she was passing along my comments so I told her she’d better as I hadn’t received a reply from the premier when I wrote this week and I was becoming increasingly more inclined to go public with my thoughts.

I am scheduled to attend a conference in the city for work tomorrow evening and Friday and it’s still up in the air as to whether I’ll make it. At this point I’m thinking I’ll arrive late for the p.m. session but the situation changes hourly. I had originally hoped to make a scrapbooking weekend being offered in the city as I would’ve been there anyway but….not gonna happen.

Well, I must head off to make a lobstering lunch for the ‘big dog’ for the morning.